


Not without you

by Shaish



Series: Ghosts [9]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Age of Ultron, Cats, Emotions, M/M, Sex, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-02
Updated: 2014-11-02
Packaged: 2018-02-23 14:19:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2550629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shaish/pseuds/Shaish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Warnings for sex and violence.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Not without you

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for sex and violence.

“Steve.”

“Mm?”

“We should take a vacation.”

Steve looks up from where he’s staring into the eyes of a dead man, gun still aimed where the bullet’s gone through the center of the man's forehead. “Buck-”

“Don’t say this is a vacation,” Bucky cuts him off as he walks over the body of a woman in a white labcoat, pursing his lips. Steve frowns a little, looking around the room.

It’s an old, re-outfitted Red Room lab created during the early years of Project Paperclip, and they learned that-

“California’s got beaches,” Bucky says, a little too casually, untwisting one of the silencers off of his gun. Steve looks over and Bucky looks up at him. “We need to go back, anyway,” he says, eyes on Steve’s.

Steve sighs while Bucky pulls a small container of lighter fluid out of his jacket pocket. Steve’s eyes dart over him, checking him over.

There’s not a drop of blood on him.

Steve waits while Bucky sprays the lighter fluid around the large lab, turning and walking over to him and they start walking out into the hall, Bucky letting the lighter fluid leave a trail behind them.

Steve keeps his eyes ahead as they walk, off of the occasional viewing window that they pass on either side of them housing more horrors than Steve wants to think about.

Other projects, other people, other people who _aren’t_ people anymore. Most of them have starved to death, walls covered in claw marks and blood smeared across the windows, but the rest…

There’s a sharp _pound_ to his right on the next window they pass and Steve doesn’t flinch, and he doesn’t look, just presses his arm into Bucky’s when Bucky walks a little closer to him.

The rest are rabid and wild and lost, and Steve’s not naive enough to think he or Bucky can help them, let alone anyone else. They’ve been through similar treatments themselves, none quite like this, but close enough, and if they can’t help the creatures behind the glass, the monsters The Red Room couldn’t hone and perfect into weapons or find a use for other than further experimentation, see how far they could twist and _tear_ -

If Steve and Bucky can’t help them, no one really can.

They both strike a match when they get to the end of the hall, tossing them both just inside the door and letting the door fall closed behind them, both silent as they walk towards the car they stole for the trip.

\--

“A beach?” Steve asks, breaking the silence that’s been oppressive since they left the site.

Bucky tilts his head, quirking up the side of his lips as he looks over at Steve from the road after a moment. “A beach,” he confirms.

It’s quiet for another minute before Bucky says-

“I hear they have Alligators in Florida-”

“ _Buck_.”

\--

As soon as they land back in the States, they find the closest area or alley that’s deserted and _unwind,_ get it out of the way before the itch builds up and becomes a dangerous distraction.

Bucky dislocates Steve’s jaw with a punch, cracks three of his ribs and breaks one.

Steve dislocates Bucky’s right arm, breaks two of his ribs and fractures his shin.

They’re both covered in scratches and bruises and claw marks by the end of it, and Steve takes the first shift driving while Bucky sleeps in the passenger seat with his hat pulled down low and Shadow in his lap, hat covering a black eye and bruising near his temple. Four of the kittens sleep in the back.

Steve keeps his own hat low in case of road security cameras, hair pushed down against his neck to hide some of the bruises from Bucky’s hand gripping it, his bangs hanging loose around the sides of his face, hiding a few more bruises. He strokes the white pawed kitten’s head while he drives, a bundle of fur in his denim-clad lap. He and Bucky will both be healed before they get to where they need to go.

\--

The information they found in the old Red Room lab takes them to New Jersey instead of anywhere near California, and fortunately, Steve’s driving when Bucky brings up, “ _Alligators, Stevie_ ,” so he can say, “ _No, Bucky_.”

Bucky pouts while the orange kitten swats at his low hanging bangs, lips twitching reluctantly at the attempts.

\--

They don’t bother ‘ _Initiating System_ ’, and instead plant enough explosives to turn the hidden bunker beneath S.H.I.E.L.D.’s starter office and Camp Lehigh into a crater.

It takes something of Steve with it as he watches from a barely safe distance away, makes his memories just that much more of a...memory. One less tangible thing from decades gone by.

Part of him is glad, though, to have it gone. The camp wasn’t like he remembered it, everything overgrown and rusting and no longer in use. In a way, destroying it made his memories that much more concrete, fragile and indestructible all at once.

Bucky leans closer and grips his hand a little tighter where he’s standing on Steve’s right, metal shining in the light of the fire in the night, and Steve lets out a breath, letting himself fall back the couple of inches to rest against the side of the car, just for a moment.

Zola is gone now, too, and another part of them can finally rest with that fact.

\--

They spend the night in their car parked somewhere off of a road that stretches on for miles under the cover of trees, Steve’s got his forehead pressed to Bucky’s in the backseat, the cats all asleep on various parts of the car, a couple down on the back seat’s floor and the rest upfront. Steve stares at Bucky and Bucky stares back, breathing in sync.

“Do you think we should’ve-” Bucky cuts himself off, voice a near whisper of breath between them. His eyes go a little unfocused.

Steve gives him a minute to think before pulling him from it. “Did you want to?” he asks, just as quiet. Bucky’s eyes focus back on him, shadows chasing shadows in the blue-gray.

Bucky’s quiet for another minute, eyes dropping down to somewhere between them when he decides, “...No.” He looks back up at Steve. “Did you want to?”

Steve studies him for a moment before letting his own eyes go unfocused, imagines at least ten different, varying scenarios of how a conversation with _Zola_ would have gone.

He blinks, forces his eyes back open when they want to stay shut because he doesn’t want to see what’s going to be behind them, in the dark, in his memories. He shakes his head. “No.”

Bucky studies him for a moment before nodding once, pressing his forehead a little more firmly to Steve’s. “Let that ghost lie,” he almost whispers. Steve looks at him.

“Like us?” he asks after a minute, and Bucky stares back, lips curving up, but only slightly.

“We won’t lie,” he says, “Not yet.”

Steve nods once and closes his eyes after Bucky brushes his metal fingers through Steve’s hair. Steve wraps his left arm around Bucky’s waist and pulls them almost impossibly closer.

They both wake from nightmares caused by the pieces settling into place and scare the cats, but it only happens twice for each of them and then their sleep is undisturbed.

They wake up with Shadow curled in the tiny gap of space between them, and it's more comforting than Steve can word. One look at Bucky says he feels the same.

\--

“Two beers,” Bucky says a few days later in a bar in Maryland. They took a couple days to sort out their heads, but they shouldn’t have stayed as close to New York for as long as they have. It’s just hard to leave it, now that they’re this close.

Steve watches the bartender glance at Bucky briefly then look again to give him a searching look. Steve digs a quarter out of his pocket and flicks it low with his thumb into the side of a man a few stools down the bar, hard enough to make him jump up with a yelp and spill his beer all over the woman next to him and distract the bartender. Bucky pulls his baseball cap down further as they both turn and exit the bar.

“Liquor store?” Bucky asks once they’re a few blocks and multiple alleys away.

Steve makes an agreeing sound, pausing as his eyes catch on a display of tvs in a window on the other side of the street over the heads of a group of people gathered around it. Bucky stops with him, also turning his head to look.

They can both hear it from here:

“- _developments in New York. Avengers scattered after an attack on Avengers Tower, all now engaged in battle against what appears to be a quickly growing army of metal creatures led by one calling itself ‘Ultron’, name surprisingly the same as a new project Tony Stark said he was working on last week with a fellow scientist by the name of Hank Pym-_ ”

They stare at the tvs.

“- _don’t know how they’re going to win this one. A city wide evacuation has been issued_ -”

Steve looks over at Bucky and Bucky takes a few moments before looking back. They don’t say anything, and eventually Bucky’s lips tick up in a small, helpless kind of smile, but the creature in his eyes is both resigned and thrilled. 

“Time to go back,” he says quietly, offering his hand, and Steve takes it, letting Bucky pull them on down the street, “Let’s see if we can scrounge up a couple of rifles between here and there.”

Steve squeezes his hand.

It shouldn't be too hard. If there's one thing they've both noticed that America's come to love, it's their guns.

\--

“Iron Man on eight,” he hears, and adjusts his scope in the opposite direction where he’s laying in the shade.

“Black Widow on one,” Steve replies, just as quiet, and Bucky adjusts his own scope where he’s laying a few feet away from him.

They both fire, boots touching. Steve watches Natasha whirl around in his scope, eyes finding his location in the bare second she has free before another mechanical soldier tries to take her by surprise and she whips back around, taking it down. Steve adjusts his scope.

It’d be easier to fight on the ground, but, well, there’s news helicopters patrolling the perimeter, and he’d rather not step out in front of the camera just yet. Most governments and organizations already know he and Bucky survived the helicarrier crash seven years ago, but he and Bucky have stayed ahead of it by moving constantly and taking down, or giving a _warning,_  to anyone who tries to take them in. None of them have been quite stupid enough to try twice yet. Aiding in this battle will paint a broader target on both of their backs, and most likely embolden the pursuits of them ( _by the Avengers, included_ ).

By all reason, they shouldn’t _be here_.

But this threat isn’t one Steve can just watch from afar, and Bucky will follow him wherever he goes, Steve knows.

Besides, it gives them a chance to unwind, in a _different_ way, and the feel of a rifle at his shoulder and The Winter Soldier’s boot against his is a bit like coming home, old and familiar and calming.

“Iron Man engaging Hulk,” Bucky near whispers across the space to him, sounding confused. Steve frowns and adjusts his scope to get a brief look and a blue-white blur streaks across it. He frowns further, shifting his scope to follow it back to the woman in red. The woman and the man in white and blue say something to each other that Steve doesn’t quite catch the shape of on their lips and then they both start attacking the robots. He feels Bucky shift just slightly next to him.

“Red and Blue engaging hostiles,” Bucky reports, a little bemused, “Should we let them live?” he asks, almost idly.

Steve watches them for a moment more before shifting his attention to where Clint’s running from five robots. Steve shoots down three and it gives Clint a chance to shoot down the other two, eyes briefly meeting his in his scope before Clint’s running again.

“For now,” Steve says warily, “But we’ll keep an eye on them.”

A helicopter passes by overhead and then it’s exploding and crashing down, both of them turning their heads to look. Three of the robots cling to it’s hull like beasts, ripping more metal out of it while it burns and falls like a comet. One of them jerks its head up in their direction and Steve gets the distinct feeling that he’s being stared at. He quickly double taps his boot against Bucky’s just before the robot launches itself off of the falling helicopter towards _them_ , both he and Bucky shoving themselves up while Steve quickly pulls his shield off of his back.

It charges and dodges Bucky’s shot, colliding with Steve’s shield and shoving Steve towards the edge of the roof. He manages to skid to a stop just before reaching the ledge and shoves the robot sideways, spinning around and kicking with his right leg to send it over and below, metal hard on metal. He looks up at Bucky as Bucky lets out a breath, bangs blowing up slightly with it. But then Steve’s ears catch something and he whips his head back around, just in time to see one of three robots scaling the building grab his right ankle, and Steve’s sure if it were his left it’d be enough force to crush the meat and bone.

He’s flung over the side of the roof and manages to catch sight of Bucky’s frantic, wide eyed expression and three more robots climbing over the other edge of the roof behind him before Steve’s _falling_. He hears Bucky yelling his name and it overlaps with the memory of _him_ yelling _Bucky’s_ and-

All he can think with his heart and stomach crammed up into his throat is that it’s _wrong._ He’s not supposed to be falling _backwards_ -

He has the strangely frantic-calm thought that he could probably survive it. He’s fallen from higher up and _died_ and _lived_ -

Something whizzes by him and his hand whips out on instinct to grab it, fingers enclosing on a rope just as an arrow anchors itself into the cement of the building and pulls the rope taught. Steve uses his momentum and sudden jerk to swing himself around and fling himself at the building, crashing through the glass feet first and landing on his back, rolling on autopilot back onto his feet. He doesn’t think, just _runs_ , heading for the stairwell and trying to ignore-

_Wind in his face, Bucky’s fingers locked in his gloved ones-_

_Bucky’s eyes wide as they stare up at him and Steve can’t breathe but he’s eerily calm but **his heart is beating rapid time in his chest** but **he’s calm**_ -

 _Everything_ -

\--

As soon as Steve gets out of the building, he fights on instinct, training, and autopilot, shooting, blocking, kicking, twisting, flipping.

He’s not sure how long it goes on, is barely aware of a thought in his head. For the most part, his mind is shut down, focused solely on processing rapid fire battle information and reacting accordingly. He’s barely aware that he’s probably in shock, that he should maybe be letting out the delayed scream that's built in his chest from the fall, but all he can feel is the _nothing_ and _eerie calm_ even while his _heart_ beats a mile a minute in his chest.

He registers the sound of gunfire and metal tearing and jets and wings overhead, but they don’t enter his immediate vicinity so he lets them slide to the background and _fights_.

He jams his shield into the chest of one of the robots, just about ready to swirl around and hit the air displacement he feels behind him, but then the lights flicker out in the one in front of him and he hears a series of _thuds_ from all around. He looks, and catches some of the robots in the distance falling to the ground, lights flickering out, like the ones immediately around him, the one _behind_ him.

He stares, eyes darting around as he turns in place, slowly lowering his shield a little as he watches and listens for any movement. There’s none.

He has the vague thought that he should leave, should go before anyone shows up, but he-

There’s the sound of boots hitting cement and he whirls around, shield raised, then freezes, eyes locking on Bucky’s.

Bucky slowly straightens up, eyes on Steve’s, walking over after a minute and stepping on robot legs, chests, heads as he goes, crushing them under his boots and covered in dirt. Steve jolts at a spark from one of the fallen robots and moves, meeting Bucky in the middle.

Bucky’s hands lift and check over Steve almost frantically, eyes slowly widening a little as he lets out a harsh breath. “ _Steve,_ ” he says desperately, half breath and half sound.

Steve jolts again and reaches up, left hand coming up to grip the side of Bucky’s face. He lets out his own harsh breath and leans in, pressing their lips together and then their foreheads. “ _Buck_ ,” he lets out, body starting to shudder, “ _We need to_ -”

But Bucky’s already pulling him away from the mess of metal robots and stone debris, ducking into an alley and leading them away at a full sprint when they hear jets and wings half a block behind them.

\--

They get back to the car parked in an abandoned, tree covered field and Bucky all but shoves him into the backseat, the cats scattering to the front at the sudden commotion. Bucky climbs in behind him and slams the door shut, and they shouldn’t, but Steve drops his shield to the back seat floor and lets Bucky pull his clothes off while he pulls off Bucky’s. He needs to _see_ , needs _to_ _make sure_ -

Steve’s hands find Bucky's skin and Bucky’s find his, roaming over the curves and sharp angles and scars, checking, double checking, _searching_ -

Steve lets out a quick breath when he finds Bucky mostly unharmed, and Bucky only takes a moment of staring down at Steve’s chest where his right hand has come to a stop before he’s looking into Steve’s eyes and then yanking him forward, lips crashing and tongues meeting. Steve groans into his mouth, arms wrapping around Bucky while Bucky pushes them back. Steve hits his head on the door handle but doesn’t pay it any attention, Bucky’s left hand coming up to cradle the back of it as he grinds their hips together, breaking the kiss mid-moan and pulling only a couple inches back, letting out a warm breath and sound against Steve’s face.

Steve shifts his hips so their cocks line up better and grinds up, pushing Bucky’s lower back down hard with a hand and twining a leg with his. Bucky groans, dropping his head to suck and lick at the side of Steve’s neck, biting down with another groan when Steve slides his hand lower and two fingers between his cheeks.

“Steve, _please_ -” Bucky pants desperately, lifting his head up enough to bite along the side of Steve’s jaw, “I _can’t_ \- _I_ _need- **I need** **you**_ -” _I need to make sure that you're **here**._

Steve turns his head and bites onto Bucky’s pulse point, locking it between his teeth and pressing his tongue firmly over it while he pushes a finger inside. Bucky’s back arches impossibly closer while he lets out a, “ _Fuck_ ,” metal fingers digging into the back of Steve’s hair before he lets it go and grips the side of the seat instead, right hand gripping over Steve’s heart.

Steve slides his tongue up to Bucky’s jaw where he bites and sucks at his stubbled skin, sliding his finger further in while Bucky rocks back on it and moans without restraint, breaths coming fast with Steve’s while he rocks faster, back onto Steve's finger and forward against his cock, motions jerky and uncontrolled. He needs it.

Steve needs it too.

Steve leans his head down to bite as close as he can to Bucky’s heart while he pushes his finger in further and faster, _harder_ , making sure Bucky can _feel it_ , the sound of the seat’s material tearing next to his head while Bucky’s moan goes sharp and loud in the enclosed space, left leg spreading wider while his right presses hard against the seat’s back.

“ _Don’t ever fall again_ ,” Bucky says viciously between moans and pants, wild eyes finding Steve’s, “ ** _Not without me_.** **_Don’t, don’t don’t_** -”

“ _I’m here_ ,” Steve says, shifting his hand up to dig his fingers in Bucky’s hair, messing up his ponytail. He pulls the tie out and lets Bucky’s hair fall over them both, leaning up to kiss and bite Bucky’s lower lip. “ _ **I’m here**_ ,” he repeats against it, as much for Bucky as for himself.

Bucky lets out an almost _pained_ sound, dropping his head enough to press his lips hard to Steve’s, opened mouthed kisses alternating between rough and gentle while their tongues slide together. Steve slides his finger in as far as he can and crooks it, and Bucky’s last moan is loud and drawn out as he comes, arching into Steve and tearing the seat apart with his left hand, fingernails of his right digging into Steve’s skin and breaking the surface.

Steve groans loud when he comes a few seconds later, head pressing back into the seat. He feels hot breath and lips on the side of his taught neck and lets out a long sigh, relaxing back onto the seat, pulling his finger out and sliding his hand slowly up over Bucky’s backside and lower back, curling his arms around him and pulling him close when Bucky sucks a temporary bruise into his skin. Steve leans his head up after and presses another kiss to Bucky's lips before pressing their foreheads together, looking up.

Bucky stares back down at him, breaths gradually coming slower. Bucky shifts and leans his head down after a minute, tongue licking up the blood on Steve’s chest from his fingernails while the mess between them slowly goes sticky. Bucky slides lower after he’s finished there and licks up the mess on Steve’s stomach, and Steve pulls him up when he’s done so the mess on Bucky’s is close to his face, leaning his head up to lick it up in return, tongue tracing over scars that he stops to kiss and suck at gently while he does.

Bucky’s metal fingers bury themselves into his hair, tugging on it gently while he presses the top of his own head to the fogged up glass of the door, straddling and leaning over Steve’s chest. “I love you,” he says quietly, almost on a breath. Steve looks up, finished, and watches him. “I love you,” Bucky repeats, even though it doesn’t encompass enough, doesn’t say much of anything for how he feels, _everything_  that he feels. He cups Steve’s cheek with his right palm and stares down at him. “I need you, and I can’t lose you again,” he says quietly, voice cracking, “You can’t go. Not without me.” Steve quirks up his lips a little at him, but his fingers dig into Bucky’s skin almost hard enough to breach the surface.

“I won’t,” Steve says, staring up at him, “I love you and I won’t. Not without you. Never without you.”

Bucky stares down at him for another moment before shifting down and laying on top of Steve. He lets out a breath and Steve does too, arms wrapping around each other and Bucky pressing his forehead to Steve’s temple. “Not without you,” Bucky whispers, and Steve’s lips twitch even though it’s not funny, and he turns his head to press their foreheads together.

“Not without you," Steve confirms.

\--

They stop at a small hotel on the outside of Florida, Bucky grinning smugly and Steve rolling his eyes, but smiling a little. They keep the radio on the for the whole drive, hear that all of the Avengers are alive and accounted for. They listen to Tony and Pym each talk a bit about Ultron and memorize the casualty number.

They step into their room, arms full of cats, and freeze, Shadow letting out a low growl from around Steve's shoulders. Bucky flicks the light on and both Steve and Bucky blink. Steve feels Bucky stiffen a little further next to him.

“Natalia,” Bucky says, voice a little strained.

Natasha rises from the ratty armchair in the corner of the room she'd apparently been lounging in, looking the same as they left her except for her hair now being down to her waist, and Steve watches her eyes flicker over their arms full of cats, eyebrow rising as she meets their eyes. Bucky clears his throat and Steve glances over to him briefly before looking back to her, Shadow still tense and coiled around his shoulders.

“Long hair on both of you,” is the first thing she says, "I like it.” 

Steve’s is down to his shoulders now, as long as, or short, now, as Bucky’s had been, once upon a time. Bucky’s brushes just below his tailbone now, pulled back into a ponytail. Steve hasn’t gotten around to putting his in one yet, but he probably should.

Steve doesn’t shift and Bucky doesn’t either, but it’s hard.

“We appreciated your help,” she says, “And we looked for you after.” Bucky does snort quietly at that, and Steve tries to keep his lips flat. She raises another eyebrow at Bucky and Bucky huffs a quiet breath, shaking his head a little out of the corner of Steve’s eye.

“Nothing,” he says, “Just said that same thing, a long time ago.” Steve keeps his eyes on her.

She looks between them briefly before her eyes drop to the cats again. “I see you’ve collected strays.” Bucky tenses next to him and Steve holds a breath.

“Be kinder, Natalia,” Bucky says, “They’re practically you’re godchildren.”

Steve tries not to roll his eyes at that, but his lips twitch slightly when both of Natasha’s eyebrows climb up near her hair.

Bucky huffs another breath, almost a laugh, gesturing with a shoulder in Steve's direction. “Shadow,” he says, and Shadow’s tail twitches once against Steve’s shoulder, “We kind of adopted along the way. These are her kids,” he says lightly, and Steve can hear the smirk-smile in his voice. He doesn’t look away though. Natasha being here is dangerous, and neither of them can be sure that she’s actually _alone_ , or that she'll stay that way.

Her eyes drop back to the cats again, looking over them a little more slowly this time.

“Are you going to take us in?” Steve asks after a minute of tense silence, and Natasha’s eyes move back up to his. She looks between them again and Steve can practically _hear_ Bucky holding his breath.

“I could,” she allows, and Steve tenses slightly, “But I won’t. I just wanted to express my thanks.”

Bucky snorts and her eyes dart to him. “Yeah, right,” he says a little flatly.

She schools her expression. “Believe what you want,” she says calmly, walking forward.

They both tense and Steve shifts his angle when she stops in front of Bucky and reaches forward with a hand. Shadow bristles on Steve’s shoulder before darting across his and landing on Bucky’s. Her hand pauses as she stares at it, moving it slowly towards one of the cats in Bucky's arms while Shadow growls.

She strokes her fingers slow and gentle across one of the black cat’s heads, Shadow stiff and hackles up even when she finally pulls her hand back, just as slow as before. “They’re cute,” she says, and walks around Bucky, faintly brushing his arm as she goes with her own.

"Your hair," Bucky speaks up before she reaches the door. She turns around and both Bucky and Steve turn to face her. "The length. I like it."

Her lips quirk up slightly and then she turns back around and she’s gone, leaving the door open.

They both watch the door for a tense moment before Bucky shares a look with him and they leave, getting back into the car and driving.

\--

Bucky crouches outside the closed window, feet planted on the wall and hanging down the side of the building in the night with a rope gripped tight in his left hand. He shifts the bundle in his arm up to his shoulder and gets the window open without damaging it, grabbing hold of the black cat on his shoulder and pressing his lips to its head before holding it out to the windowsill and letting it slip inside, shutting the window quietly after.

He hangs there for a minute, watching the cat stare at him for a moment before walking further into the room and out of sight before he starts pulling himself back up the rope, pulling himself up and over the edge of the roof and standing up. Steve unties the rope next to where he's standing by the roof door and winds it back up, pulling the extra slack across the roof and slipping it around the bundle before putting the looped rope on an arm as he walks over. He looks at Bucky questioningly and Bucky nods. Steve smiles a little, something small and a little sad, and Bucky returns it before they turn and start to run for the next roof over.

\--

Bucky watches through his scope two rooftops away, sight focused through the window of the apartment.

Natalia shows up after a few hours and Bucky can see the moment she realizes something is off, a remote on her coffee table half an inch off from where it’d originally been, and maybe even more that he can’t see from his vantage point.

He sees a familiar black shape walk towards her and sees her freeze. Steve freezes where he’s laying next to him and looking through his own scope and Bucky taps their boots together once to reassure him ( _and himself_ ).

Natalia darts her eyes around the apartment as she slowly closes the front door behind her, sidestepping the cat to scan the whole place before she stops back in the main room and stares down at it, the black cat staring back up at her.

It’s a tense few minutes, but she eventually crouches down, holding a hand out.

The cat looks at it for a moment before walking forward and sniffing it, brushing it’s face and side along it after a few seconds. Bucky sees her lips twitch up before she starts petting it, gathering it into her arms after a moment and stroking an ear as she walks over to the window, examining the latch before looking up and straight into his scope. His lips twitch and he gets up, Steve moving with him, and he watches her watch them before he turns around and they both go.

“Think it’ll be okay?” Steve asks quietly once they’re getting closer to their car. Bucky looks straight ahead, nodding once with a small smile on his face.

“Yeah, I think it’ll be okay,” he says softly. He looks over and Steve looks back, eyes a little sad but a small smile on his face. “She is its godmother after all,” Bucky adds. Steve snorts quietly and shakes his head a little, and it’s enough to dispel most of the tension that’s been in Steve’s shoulders since Bucky brought up his idea the other night.

A cat isn’t quite an apology, nor does it really make anything  _better_ , but it’s _something_ , and he knows that means more to Natalia than it does to most people.

He bumps his shoulder into Steve’s and Steve bumps his back, rifles slung over their shoulders and steps in sync.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay. These oneshots are going to start winding down, so if there's something that you _really_ want to see happen before I reach the last one, something you think I've left out or you feel is unresolved, let me know in a comment and I'll try to make it work. I can't guarantee that it will, because I do have a sort of order going for these in my head and I've actually left a _ton_ of things on a list I made undone because they're too...way out of the way or tiny to be bothered with over the bigger ideas. But if you really want to see something happen let me know and I'll try to put it into the next one or two. (:


End file.
